The present invention relates generally to collaborative communications, and relates more particularly to flow-directed processes for collaborative communications.
The growing complexity of the modern global business market introduces new challenges to gathering information and solving problems. Critical business decisions often rely on collaboration across broad networks of individuals (e.g., coworkers, customers, vendors, business partners, etc.) who provide information and answers for individual pieces of knowledge that help answer broader questions. The more complex the business, the more collaboration may be necessary to answer a question. Delays introduced by differing time zones may introduce further challenges still in networks that are truly globally integrated.
One conventional solution for rapidly responding to a business need is to organize a meeting (e.g., a teleconference) between the individuals whose input is required. Meetings provide an opportunity for immediate answers to questions and decision making, provided that the right people are involved. However, it may be difficult to ensure that the right people are involved if one does not first know what questions to ask in order to obtain the required information. Moreover, meeting effectiveness also relies on the individuals organizing the meeting to provide a well-defined agenda and to take detailed records.
Another conventional solution for rapidly responding to business needs is electronic mail (“email”). Email allows the primary stakeholder to reach a larger audience more quickly that a meeting, and with less investment of resources (and thus less potential waste). Email also leverages the collective knowledge base, allowing questions to be forwarded to additional individuals who are believed to have the answers. However, since email tends to create an open loop, an answer within a required time frame is not guaranteed (time zone differences may also contribute to this drawback). Moreover, copying and forwarding of email can create divergent threads, making it difficult to reconstruct the history of the original query.